A shorter coho season might be sweeter

Tuesday

The “south of Cape Falcon” coho salmon season, once the summerlong mainstay of Oregon ocean fisheries between Tillamook and the Oregon-California border, will be at least two weeks shorter than it was in 2011.

The Pacific Fisheries Management Council earlier this month set a “marked selective” coho fishing season of July 1-31.

Last year, the season on hatchery coho ran from July 1 through Aug. 13.

The harvest quota this year is 8,000 fin-clipped coho, compared with 15,000 last year. Fishing will be halted before the scheduled end date of the season if landings reach the quota.

There are two sweeteners, however, in the ocean salmon season framework.

First, anglers will — for only the second time since 1992 — be allowed to harvest unmarked (wild) fish when the coho season reopens for up to 12 days in September. That “non-mark-selective” coho fishery is scheduled for Sept. 1-3 (Saturday through Monday) and Sept. 6-8, 13-15 and 20-22 (Thursdays through Saturdays).

The maximum allowable harvest during the September segment of the season is 10,000 coho, up from the 3,000 originally allocated in 2011.

The second bit of sweet news is that chinook salmon numbers have rebounded dramatically. The number of chinook salmon returning to the Sacramento, Klamath and Rogue rivers is forecasted to be significantly higher than returns in recent years.

Federal fishery managers are projecting that 1.6 million adult chinook will be bound for the Klamath River this fall. That’s four times more than last year and 15 times more than in 2006. Also, a minimum of about 850,000 Sacramento River chinook are expected to be feeding off the Oregon Coast on their way home this summer.

Meanwhile, “our own returning stocks of fall chinook have been trending upward, and I don’t see any reason why that won’t continue,” said Eric Schindler, ocean salmon sampling project leader for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in Newport.

“The Coos, Coquille, Elk and Sixes all had very strong runs last year ... things have been improving all the way up the coast.”

The relative abundance of the larger chinook salmon should be enough to tempt anglers to go fishing on days the ocean is open to “all salmon except coho.” That’s any day between March 15 and Oct. 31 that is not set aside for one of the “marked-selective” coho seasons. (Chinook may also be retained as part of the two-salmon bag limit on days open to coho fishing).

“It looks like its going to be a very good year...I’m optimistic,” Schindler said.

The biologist said the overall number of coho returning to Oregon this summer is expected to be about the same as last year. However, a drop in the ratio of hatchery-to-wild fish led to the decision to shorten the “marked selective” season, he said.

Unmarked (wild) coho returning to Oregon coastal streams this year are expected to number 291,000, up 16 percent from a year ago. Meanwhile the number of coho returning to Columbia River hatcheries is expected to shrink to about 342,000.

As a result, Schindler said, anglers in some coastal areas this summer might find themselves having to release the majority of the coho they catch during July. For example, the “mark rate” in the Coos Bay area is expected to be only 27 percent, meaning the average angler would have to land four coho to find one keeper.

“People get frustrated when they have to release more of the non-clipped fish trying to get at the clipped fish,” Schindler said.

More importantly from a fish management standpoint: a percentage of the released fish don’t survive the experience of being hooked and handled. This “hooking mortality” reduces the allowable harvest of hatchery fish.

Coho mark rates along the central coast historically drop in August as the hatchery coho head for the Columbia River.

So fishery managers decided to shorten the marked-selective season and use some of the fish set aside for “hooking mortality” to boost the non-selective September fishery.

“The September non-selective coho season was actually pretty popular with folks last year,” Schindler said.

One reason: late-season coho tend to be significantly larger than those caught in July.

Last year, the September fishery was set for only four days, with a quota of 3,000 coho. This year’s 12 days and 10,000 fish should be a much sweeter deal.

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